Texans’ Foster proves he’s no ordinary NFL player

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Arian Foster arrived in the NFL almost unnoticed, with a point he was willing to go to great lengths to prove. One of the telltale signs that Foster was well on his way to proving he wasn’t the crazy one for believing he could flourish at football’s highest level came during a December 2010 game against the Baltimore Ravens.

Undrafted out of college, relegated to the practice squad for much of his first professional season, Foster was on his way to leading the league in rushing. During the second quarter of a Ravens victory at Reliant Stadium, All-Pro linebacker Ray Lewis cornered Foster to say, “I love the way you play the game.”

The two struck up a friendship at the Pro Bowl and met up again at the ESPYs award show, talking for hours afterward. They have gone back and forth on the phone this week, knowing full well they’ll meet again on Sunday when the Texans face the Ravens in an AFC divisional playoff game.

“H’s driven by a different burning inside,” Lewis said. “He was an undrafted guy with a lot of talent, so he’s fueled by something different. Any time you add that type of fuel with talent, you get Arian Foster.”

Many sides to him

It turns out Foster, 25, is fueled by something different to be something different than the cookie-cutter NFL star. Here’s a former University of Tennessee philosophy major whose name is an abbreviated form of Aquarians. Foster is half African-American, half Mexican-American, and he dabbles in poetry and writing song lyrics. He is a father of a 2-year-old daughter, Zeniah, whose mother speaks German. He embraces yoga and New Age teachings, bowing after touchdowns as an ode to Eastern culture.

When the Texans had an open date in November, Foster visited New York to examine first-hand the Occupy Wall Street movement. He raised some eyebrows during an offseason talk with high-school students when he told them, “There’s always going to be somebody who says you can’t do something. Usually that somebody didn’t do what they wanted to do with their life. I tell kids all the time, ‘Don’t listen to adults.’ ”

He frets about the perils of conformity, yet his chosen profession – the one a seventh-grade teacher mocked as too unrealistic to contemplate – is one that frowns on free thinking and individuality.

“There are laws you have to abide by, and I acknowledge those laws,” Foster said. “But more often than not, people let the laws define them rather than really asking questions and pushing the limits. That’s how we grow as people, as a human race, really: We push limits of those boundaries.”

Tweet’s the word

Arian Foster is a Twitter devotee, reaching out to more than 130,000 followers to initiate discussions that can range from lampooning fantasy-football fanatics to discussing the meaning of life or the importance of money. When Foster did a reenactment of the “Dream Shake” move of Rockets icon Hakeem Olajuwon to celebrate the Texans’ first touchdown of the playoffs, it was the result of a discussion he’d had with his Twitter followers earlier in the week.

“There’s really not one thing you can describe him as,” said Foster’s brother and personal trainer, Abdul. “He’s not just a football player. He’s not just a father. He’s not just a brother. He’s not just a hard worker, a creative mind and spirit. He’s all of those, and some more. He’s not just bound to the football field, those 100 yards. That’s why I say he’s a great human spirit.”

Just don’t mistake Foster for some sort of float-through-life gadfly who stands for or commits to nothing. When somebody in the Twitterverse asked last week what the key is to success, Foster offered this answer: “Defining what success means to you, then being willing to die for it.”

“People think I’m joking when I say I’m willing to die for it,” Foster said. “I’m not joking. I’ll literally run until my heart stops. My training, my preparation, it doesn’t seem that serious to somebody else. But it is to me. The name on my back means something to me – the legacy I want to leave not just on the field, but off the field.”

Texans offensive coordinator Rick Dennison describes Foster is studious and inquisitive in team meetings, saying, “To say Arian is a quick study is an understatement.”

That would be the same Foster who one day alarmed receiver Andre Johnson with an unexpected text-message. Figuring there must be something serious at hand, Johnson got treated instead to a picture of Foster feeding some ducks.

“Some people say he’s different,” Johnson said. “He’s a cocky guy, but I don’t think he’s cocky in a bad way. He has always had a chip on his shoulder because he wants to prove he’s a great player. I think he’s doing that.”

The Twitter profile of @ArianFoster offers a succinct summation of the many layers to him: “I am an aspiring human being. I don’t take life too serious, none of us make it out alive. Understand the universe, you’ll understand me.”

Foster has more than 2,300 tweets to his name, offering glimpses as to the assorted place his minds go. Sometimes he’ll hint of the inner struggles of trying to make a name for himself in the NFL: “I have such an addictive personality. I’m either all in, or all out. What a beautiful curse.”

Embracing the city

Four days before the first playoff game in franchise history, Foster tweeted: “Houston, you’ll never know how much love I have for you. You’ve changed my life forever. And I am forever indebted.” Houston is where Arian Foster, who once saw his divorced mother pawn her wedding ring to feed the family, began to make a name and place for himself.

“I’m a believer in spreading a lot of positive light,” Foster said. “Some people, I feel like are put here to help out other people. I’m in a fortunate position to have people’s eyes and people’s ears on a small scale. Any chance I get, I just try to spread any kind of positive light I can.”